Friday, 24 April 2015

Last month we asked the question, what is the
biggest hurdle preventing you from using more
new innovations in the classes you teach, or units you manage? We had 22
responses from the community.

The responses were shared amongst all six
available responses ranging from lack of access or training in new technologies
to what we termed *less-willing* colleagues. The majority of respondents
however said their workload was the biggest barrier, especially the administration
demands they feel burdened with.

The responses highlight the importance of the
continued activities of the SaMnet community. At the SaMnet leadership
development workshops participants are trained in leadership which can be used
to motivate less-willing colleagues and gain access to and training in educational
innovations. Over the last three years many in the network have participated in
action-learning projects where they trialled education innovations and shared
results around the country through SaMnet.

Are you someone who finds the workload too great
to be trying out new innovations? Skip down to section 6 of this newsletter,
Leadership Insights, for a great article on managing competing demands in a
university and making time for what will have a long term impact (or
just follow the link here).

What advice would you give to the SaMnet
community based on these results? Reply to SaMnetAustralia@gmail.com

The
conference organising committee is almost the same as FYHE in recent years but
the scope of the conference has broadened to include all year levels in HE, not
just 1st year. The change in focus provides a broader platform for the
dissemination of works associated with student experiences in higher education
as a whole.The
organisers have also scheduled the conference to closely precede rather than
clash with HERDSA this year so that many of our senior T&L folk are able to
attend both not just one conference and thereby disseminate, collaborate and
mentor the next generation of HE T&L staff.

An article about providing video feedback
on student papers, which has been tested by some academics at Monash University.
Two messages, (1) They not only tried the approach, but they also wrote a paper
about it; (2) they have gained some international notice for it – at least with
this article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

You may have seen this article doing
the rounds, but the data is in – there are some clear positives to
pen-and-paper note taking over using technology. Do you get your students to
take pen-and-paper notes?

6.Leadership insights

We are highlighting just the one
article this week, based on the responses to the question in last month’s
newsletter.

Kerry
Ann Rockquemore, President and CEO of the US National Center for Faculty Development
& Diversity

“It seems to me that there is a core
challenge that faculty members face: certain aspects of our work have built-in,
daily accountability while other aspects of our work have no short-term
accountability.” Developing your career, and investing in quality teaching have
little to no short-term accountability but we would agree that these are no
less important than our high-accountability administration tasks.

Kerry Ann gives five steps to
realistic balance, but will you make the time to read them?

7. Initiative in focus: National standards for agriculture
education launched

The University of
Tasmania, with The University of Adelaide (Information provided by Phoebe Bobbi,
project officer)

In a national first, tertiary-level education
standards for agriculture have been developed to help universities design and
deliver programs that meet agreed standards, attract more students and produce
skilled graduates.

The national standards were recently launched
by Senator Richard Colbeck, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for
Agriculture, in front of 700 delegates at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural
and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Outlook 2015 conference in
Canberra.

Led by the University of Tasmania, in
collaboration with The University of Adelaide, University of Western Sydney and
Charles Sturt University, the standards were developed through a nationwide
consultation with industry, students, and academics as part of the Federal
Government funded Agriculture Learning and Teaching Academic Standards project.

Support for this project/activity has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views in this project do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.